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Daily Archives: March 21, 2012

This past weekend, I flew to Shreveport, Louisiana to hang out at a great yarn shop, celebrate that shop’s anniversary, and give a talk. I had flight delays and troubles on the way home from there Sunday, and somehow staggered through the door just after midnight, collapsed in a heap, and didn’t really get up until yesterday morning. (I took Monday off. Nothing bad happened – and as a matter of fact, the cold I had when I woke up Monday morning is mostly gone. Who knew that resting when you don’t feel good works for mums too. Shocking.) Yesterday I tried hard to get my life together, but everything was ridiculously jumbled. I spent the whole day wondering why the house was so trashed, why there was no food, why the mail was spread out all over the dining room table, why my inbox was full – why there were no clean clothes… It took me until this morning to figure it out. Partly it’s that I left Joe unsupervised for a few days, but mostly it’s that I use the weekends to get organized and if I skip doing that by going away, then the house is trashed, there’s no food, and Joe has started an empty coffee cup collection on his dresser that is spreading faster than a disease. (Not that I clean up his cups, but I do spend the weekends pointing out that empty coffee cup art installations on top of dressers isn’t really the way that most people decorate. I point this out until he moves them.) Yesterday I did all the things that I would usually do on a Saturday/Sunday which means I didn’t blog. Now I find that I have the events of Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to tell you about. I think a day by day is the best way to catch up.

Friday: I fly to Houston, where I spend an unreasonable amount of time waiting to change planes to fly to Shreveport. The flight was delayed because they were waiting for the pilot. The pilot showed up after about an hour, and when I asked the airline why he had been late, they laughed. I wasn’t kidding. Was he lost? Disorganized? Forgot he had to fly a plane? I think I care about all that. I think that’s relevant pilot information. I don’t know if I want to fly to Shreveport with a guy who forgot he had to fly a plane. The best thing about the flights is that I finish a pair of socks that have been trucking around in my purse since at least January. A little detective work, and I can tell you this is Trekking XXL colour 107. They’re snazzy, especially with Natalie’s little red shoes. The cat even likes them. Saturday: 1. The ladies of Knitting Under the Influence of Nancy turn out to be very nice and very welcoming and hospitable. Ridiculously nice in fact. Nice like it’s a superpower or something. If I had been thinking about it, I would have expected it to be only logical result of combining Southern with Knitter.

2. They are funny too.

3. It takes me very little time to work out that there is a weird team tee-shirt thing going on in the South. Not only are the core group of Nancy’s friends all wearing matching red tee shirts, but this group showed up in some – and this group showed up in some – and thank goodness they brought me one at that point, because I was starting to feel like I had no idea what the dress code was, but that I was pretty sure I was left out of whatever it was. (I remained poorly accessorized. Especially by Southern standards.)

4. I got to see Mary and Meg. They’ve been following me around (in a mostly non-creepy way) for a few years as a mother/daughter act. I love them. See Meg’s sweater? Handspun, handknit, by her – in two weeks, and she’s 15. Fear her.

5. Two of the amazing ladies at the shop had made sheepy cake pops. I ate a lot of them.

Sunday:

1. I am at brunch with the ladies before going to the airport when it occurs to me that I have been offered more things (food/drink/food/pen/food/chair/food/help/food/coffee/food) more times in the last 36 hours of my life, than if you added up the last 43 years. Southern hospitality is real, and it is stunning to behold.

2. When I get to the airport and my flight is delayed by 2 hours, I miss my connection in Houston, and therefore they tell me I will not be able to go home that night – so I pulled a Canadian Special at the Houston airport to get them to find me a seat on the plane. I apologized to them until they gave up. It took twenty minutes of apologizing to go all the way from "there’s nothing we can do" to "your seat is 5C". "I’m so sorry you think you have no seats. I feel terrible about this. Oh my goodness, I just feel so bad that you have to find one. I’m sorry I have to go to Toronto, I apologize for needing to really go tonight. Thanks so much for the help, I know you’ll find me something, I apologize for being such a pain. No, no – I’m so sorry I can’t go sit down. Please, accept my apology for this difficulty. I feel terrible that you have to do this for me." Please note, this technique does not work if you are not A) completely sincere B) not leaving the customer service desk, at all.

Monday: I lie around completely slothful, knitting and spinning until I am done being tired, and this mean’s that I finish the Manx Loaghton, which turns out to be everything I had dreamed it might be and more. It’s springy, bouncy, a little fuzzy and soft. Not merino soft, but durable soft. I like it a lot. A whole lot.(PS. Yes! Crocuses in my garden.)

Monday I also grabbed a big chunk of dyed polwarth from the stash and spun it into singles, which I didn’t take a picture of. Tuesday: Tuesday I plied the polwarth singles from Monday into yarn, yarn that should be for a friend, but I’m sort of having trouble imagining the part where I put it into her hands and leave it there.Also Tuesday, I wove the ends in on my thrummed mittens. They’re officially finishedjust in time for spring.

Now today, today I’m having a sock problem, but let’s talk about that tomorrow. We’re
almost caught up. What did you do this weekend?